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Home News How spongy is your school? Join An Taisce’s rainfall and flooding citizen science project to find out…

How spongy is your school? Join An Taisce’s rainfall and flooding citizen science project to find out…

Registration for An Taisce’s third Rainfall and Flooding Campaign Spongy Schools, is now open.

Schools will be sent a rain gauge and asked to monitor the rainfall levels at their school over a four week period. There are options to expand the project by monitoring areas of puddling/flooding around the school and drawing flood maps.

Students are also encouraged to come up with nature based solutions to help Slow the Flow – preventing flooding and harnessing rainfall for biodiversity and increased green spaces. Schools can even enter a competition to receive funding to implement their plan.

Why does it matter?

Global average temperatures are rising. Scientists say that this is destabilizing our weather and climate systems. In Ireland this means there will be more frequent and intense rainfall events in the summer and dryer winters.
When a lot of rain falls in a short amount of time, we can see more flooding in places with a lot of tarmac such as cities, towns, and villages.
In many school neighbourhoods and cities, the ground is covered in tarmac, concrete and stone.
This can make us even more at risk of rainfall related flooding as the water does not have enough space to be absorbed, and drains and sewage systems cannot process so much rain in one go.

Learn more:

You can sign up here: Rainfall and Flooding Registration Form 2024 (arcgis.com)

Further details are on The Globe Programme website: Spongy School – Rainfall and Flood Resilience – Ireland – GLOBE.gov

About author

EPA Catchments Unit

Administrator

The EPA Catchments Unit is based in Dublin, and the team is involved with catchment science, chemistry, ecology, hydromorphology, modelling, Geographic Information Systems and planning. We work with the wider EPA, all of our local authorities, the Local Authority Waters and Communities Office, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and other public bodies and Departments to ensure we have the best available data and information about our catchments.

Who is involved?
Quite simply, everyone in Ireland has a role to play. This can be from something as simple as making sure you don’t pollute your local stream, or a local community working together to establish a Rivers Trust to enhance the rivers and lakes in their area, to a Government Department or Agency helping a Minister implement a new policy to help protect and enhance all our water bodies.

This website has been developed and is maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency, and is a collaboration between the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Local Authority Waters Programme.

Local Authority Waters Programme

The Local Authority Waters Programme coordinates the efforts of local authorities and other public bodies in the implementation of the River Basin Management Plan, and supports local community and stakeholder involvement in managing our natural waters, for everyone’s benefit.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA is responsible for coordinating the monitoring, assessment and reporting on the status of our 4,842 water bodies, looking at trends and changes, determining which waterbodies are at risk and what could be causing this, and drafting environmental objectives for each.

Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

The Department is responsible for making sure that the right policies, regulations and resources are in place to implement the Water Framework Directive, and developing a River Basin Management Plan and Programme of Measures to protect and restore our waters.